


hello angel

by soundandfury (supercellbreath)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Domestic, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Chansooweek, Consentacles, Eldritch Abomination Do Kyungsoo, Established Relationship, M/M, Married Couple, Minor Character Death, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Pregnancy, Reincarnation, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Trans Male Character, mention of dicks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-09 15:50:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11107785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercellbreath/pseuds/soundandfury
Summary: A collection of drabbles, written for Chansoo Week. Enjoy!





	1. DAY 1: Firsts // take a bite of my heart tonight

**Author's Note:**

> None of these are going to be super long or anything, so I'll be compiling them here <3 Tags will be added as new chapters are added.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title taken from animals by neon trees <3

“Don’t...freak out, or anything, okay?” Chanyeol asks, fidgeting nervously. “It’s, um - it’s gonna be a little scary. And a lot freaky. But I promise, I’m still me inside, no matter what.”

Kyungsoo snorts, giving a small smile to try and quell his best friend’s nerves. “Park Chanyeol, I have remained your friend even after you spilled your coffee all over my notes. I would punch Kim Seungho in his smug rich face for you. I trust you.” 

Chanyeol lets out a jittery bark of laughter, his eyes flickering amber in the dim light of his table lamp. “Okay. Okay. Um. This might be kinda awkward, ‘cause I don’t wanna rip my clothes.”

He takes the hem of his baggy sweater in one hand and removes it in one clean movement, shimmying out of his pants just as quickly. Kyungsoo’s mouth waters as milky flesh is revealed, broad shoulders and lines of lean muscle and the hint of abs showing on his pale stomach, a dark happy trail leading down tantalizingly into the hem of his Rilakkuma boxers. His traitorous heart beats in double-time in his chest, and he fights the creeping heat in his cheeks with as blank an expression as he can muster. 

Chanyeol’s red-cheeked too, hesitating for a long moment before biting his lip. “Can you - um - like, if it’s too weird for you to take, you should look away, it doesn’t take real long -”

Kyungsoo’s heart betrays him and speaks his thoughts, interrupting the elder’s accelerating speech. “-I don’t mind, ‘Yeol. Doesn’t matter if it’s strange or not. It’s you.” His voice is low and soft. It’s a quiet acknowledgement of something neither of them have quite had the guts to properly admit to each other before. “...You should use your blanket if you’re uncomfortable.”

Chanyeol gives a jerky little nod, a flustered pink spreading down his freckled pale shoulders like a moderate case of sunburn. He turns around, back facing Kyungsoo, and grabs his blanket off his bed, draping it over his shoulders like a shield as he fumbles and maneuvers his long legs underneath the flower-patterned fabric to strip himself fully bare. Kyungsoo watches from his seat with wide eyes and a gnawing in the pit of his stomach, hands tangling in the fabric of his shirt in anticipation. Finally, he steadies himself, stilling in place, the pale light of the half-moon streaming through the windows framing his silhouette in silver, contrasting against the lamplight painting him in warm gold.

He takes a deep breath, and exhales.

It spreads through his frame like a ripple, a full-body tremor travelling outwards from his core as he shudders and topples forward, the blanket fluttering from his shoulders to fall to the floor. Hands curl into thick claws, fur grows and blots out his milky skin, pointed ears twitch as they unfurl from his head. His bones crack loudly as they elongate and morph, muscle stretching and contorting to fit a more canine form, his jaw snapping and twisting into a muzzle, a bushy tail growing from the base of his spine. Within mere seconds, there’s a hulking silver-gray wolf in Chanyeol’s place, standing on shaky paws. 

Kyungsoo freezes on instinct as the wolf turns towards him, blinking open gold-amber eyes, tail swishing back and forth behind it, teeth bright and sharp in the moonlight. Paws with sharp claws, a drooling jawful of ivory knives, body mass and sheer presence enough to send every primal instinct in his brain screaming to run and hide. Thousands upon thousands of years of genetic memory shriek in unison at the figure the beast presents. Even knowing that it’s his best friend, Chanyeol in his wolf form is frankly terrifying.

The effect quickly fades when the wolf blinks, snuffling wetly. Kyungsoo realises the big bad wolf looks like a deer in the headlights. He might be an animal at the moment, but Kyungsoo’s learned over the course of their friendship to read Chanyeol like a book, and right now his hunching posture and the shimmer of his eyes is a glaring sign of Scared And Insecure Yeol, carrying over uncannily well into wolf form. He shakes himself out of his momentary shock, trying to get a little bit of the instinctive fear out of him, and gets up on his knees to lean forward and reach out a hand.

Chanyeol’s just as touch-hungry in any form, padding forward over the fallen blanket and tentatively brushing his muzzle against Kyungsoo’s outstretched palm, nose and tail twitching. Then he fully comes into Kyungsoo’s embrace, butting his whole head gently against Kyungsoo’s chest, making soft high-pitched whines as the tension bleeds from Kyungsoo’s frame and he runs his hands through his silver-gray pelt. The fur is soft and fluffy as hell, and a little ball of delight bubbles up inside him when he scratches right under his chin and Chanyeol’s lupine eyes flutter, a deep, content rumbling noise emanating from his chest.

Abruptly, Chanyeol jumps up. The full force of his weight sends them toppling over backwards, and Kyungsoo squawks as he’s pinned to the floor with a heavy, nearly fully grown werewolf on top of him, nuzzling his neck and making little growly noises, fluffy tail wagging back and forth. 

The brief flash of surprise leaves Kyungsoo, replaced with fond amusement. “You really are an oversized puppy,” he mumbles, petting his ears. Chanyeol yips softly in clear assent, bass rumbles resounding from him through Kyungsoo’s chest as he shamelessly cuddles his best friend, rubbing himself all over him and covering him in his scent.

Kyungsoo laughs and buries his grin in silvery fur. He’s going to stink terribly of dog after this, but he can’t really find it in himself to mind.

“I gotta ask, Yeol,” he mumbles, muffled by the wolf’s pelt, “How often do you rip your clothes accidentally when you do this? ‘Cause it seems like that would happen a lot with your dumb ass.”

The werewolf whines and wriggles in Kyungsoo’s hold at the words, twisting round and fixing the boy with a look that Kyungsoo can only describe as wounded, ears flattening down and eyelids drooping down, tail swishing back and forth low between his legs. Kyungsoo never thought it was possibly for a wolf to pout before, but Chanyeol’s managed to accomplish it by sheer force of personality. 

He snorts at the sight. “Okay, I get it, you’re better than that and I shouldn’t be making fun of your furry condition,” Kyungsoo soothes in a patronizing tone, and is responded with a bright yip and a big wet lick to the side of his face. Kyungsoo shrieks a little. “Okay, okay! Get off me, you oaf,” he says, slapping Chanyeol’s flank, and the wolf rumbles with laughter as he rolls off. 

Kyungsoo staggers into an upright sitting position, blinking and regaining his breath, and when he turns he sees Chanyeol lying on his back, paws stretched in the air and whining shamelessly for belly rubs. He giggles and leans over to do just that, running his hands over the werewolf’s exposed tummy through the softer fur there, watching as Chanyeol’s head lolls to the side and his tongue flops out of his mouth in utter contentment, his fluffy tail wagging like the blades of a motor engine. 

“You big dumb puppy,” Kyungsoo says, something terribly fond and warm unfurling from its hollow in his chest and spreading through his entire body, suffusing him with gooey mushy feelings. “Biggest, dumbest puppy.” Chanyeol’s answering rumble and goofy lupine grin only serve to make it worse.


	2. DAY 2: Harmony // in a tidal wave of mystery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kyungsoo in this au is ftm trans!

 

“You’re a piece of shit, Park Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo grumbles. He cradles the swell of his belly from where he’s curled up warm under the blanket, back against Chanyeol’s front. His fluffy dark strands are sleep-mussed and splayed out around him on the pastel blue pillow in a little halo, flyaway strands catching the morning light through the curtains, looking sleepy and cute and absolutely radiant. Six months of pregnancy have settled over him in a hazy glow that makes Chanyeol want to gently pin him to the bed and kiss him until he sighs and submits to his lover’s affections. 

Chanyeol hugs his husband tighter, presses a gentle kiss to the back of his pale neck right over a fading purple hickey, watches him shiver and sigh and melt into his arms. His voice in the morning is like gravel, rumbling through his chest as he murmurs lowly in Kyungsoo’s ear. “Love you too, ‘Soo.”

Kyungsoo sniffs, pink crawling down his neck. “Knocking me up with your spawn. Of course they had to take after  _ you _ , always kicking and moving and waking me up, never able to sit still for five fucking minutes so I can get some rest.”

“Aw, ’m sorry babe,” Chanyeol coos, the sound sleep-rough as he snakes his hands down to caress Kyungsoo’s swollen belly, splaying his warm palms flat against bare flesh. “Yoon-ah, Eun-ah, that’s not nice, y’gotta apologize t’your appa. He’s doin’ such a good job helping you kids grow and he loves you so so much, y’ shouldn’t be mean.” He chides their twins lightly. Kyungsoo huffs. 

“Since when did we decide on names? I thought we were just going to call them the little monsters till they popped out,” There’s a fond note in the lilt of his words as he turns his head to nuzzle against Chanyeol’s cheek. “But if we’re on the topic of names, I like the sound of Chaeyeong. Or Sooyoung, or Haneul, or Jeonghee…”

“Hayoon’s a  _ cute  _ name,” Chanyeol protests, defending his choice as he runs his hands idly over the curve of Kyungsoo’s belly. “Look, okay, I thought about it yesterday. Summer sunlight. She’ll be bright ‘n warm ‘n kickass, because she’s got us as parents.” He traces a stylized sun over Kyungsoo’s navel with one hand as the other goes up to rest under the curve of Kyungsoo’s growing breasts, now too big and sore to keep in his binder on a regular basis and hanging loose underneath the oversized band shirt that Kyungsoo took from Chanyeol’s side of the wardrobe to wear to bed. “And Haeun, summer kindness, ‘cause she’s gonna be cute ‘n sweet and she’s gotta keep her sis in check. Our baby Yoon, our little Eun.”

“You’re such a damn sap, Yeol,” Kyungsoo sighs, leaning into the press of Chanyeol’s lips against his shoulder, gently shifting as his husband nudges the overlarge collar of his shirt aside to better nuzzle into the nape of his neck. “Bet you’ve been sitting on a baby name list since high school, having domestic fantasies about a little house with a white picket fence and a dog and two point five kids with your Yoda ears.” Nevermind that the thought of his children - their children - coming out with Chanyeol’s big ears and cute nose and bubbly laughter makes Kyungsoo sing inside.

“Well, y’know, this might be an apartment, and we have a cat too, but the point still stands,” Chanyeol murmurs, breath tickling against the junction between neck and shoulder and making Kyungsoo shiver pleasantly. “I mean, I married you, after all. Look where we are, with two kids on the way. I’m living my domestic childhood dreams.”

“Oh, please. Nothing to do with you fulfilling your childhood dreams. The real reason we’ve got  _ twins  _ on the way is because of you and your stupid freak mutant sperm,” Kyungsoo snorts, elbowing him to elicit a soft giggly ‘oof’. 

“Eun-ah, Yoon-ah, your appa’s  _ bullying  _ me again-” Chanyeol whines, crowding in closer and pulling Kyungsoo into him at the same time, Kyungsoo shaking with hitched giggles as his husband pouts shamelessly. “This is domestic abuse, you girls have to protect your poor old dad from men like this-”

They both jump a little when the babies kick in succession, right under where Chanyeol’s palm is resting over Kyungsoo’s stomach. The younger man gives a soft little laugh as the older buries his grin into the nape of his neck, so terribly caught up in love that it courses through them and leaves them breathless and dazed. 

“They  _ kicked _ !” Chanyeol whispers, voice reverent. “They kicked again, ‘Soo! They  _ love  _ me!”

“Yes, I know, Yeol, I’m the one whose  _ womb  _ they’re kicking against,” Kyungsoo snarks, rolling his eyes and grinning, butting his head against Chanyeol’s. “Look at them on your side already. They haven’t even got proper fingers yet but they’ve already got you wrapped ‘round em. God, they’re gonna be such daddy’s girls.”

“Yeah, but their daddy’s always gonna be their  _ appa’s  _ man,” Chanyeol sings, bringing one leg forward to tangle with Kyungsoo’s, reaching out blindly to find his lover’s hand and wind their fingers together, feeling the cool surface of their matching rings contrast against their warm bare skin. Kyungsoo lets out a tender, affectionate hum, pressing back into the cradle of Chanyeol’s embrace, breathing slow and steady, pulses in sync and hearts entwined.


	3. DAY 3: Sweet/Bitter // i'll be your sinner and secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from run away with me by carly rae jepsen. this is a fucking MESS but enjoy these dumb boyfriends. rated M for dick mentions!

“Out!” Kyungsoo snaps, waving his spatula threateningly. The soothing R&B music coming from the speakers and the oversized Rilakkuma shirt he’s wearing does absolutely nothing to impede his sheer menace, conveyed through narrowed eyes and gritted teeth. “Get out  _ right  _ now, Byun, or so help me I will feed you laxatives for the next week-”

“Okay, alright, I’m getting out in a sec I just need a drink ‘Soo calm down-” Baekhyun babbles, raises his hands in a vain effort to appease Kyungsoo - a futile one. He’s trespassed upon Kyungsoo’s sacred domain, the kitchen, currently inhabited by the man himself in the midst of his efforts to try and cook. And not just that - Kyungsoo’s cooking something special, because it’s his and Chanyeol’s belated Anniversary Date Night and Chanyeol’s in the midst of coming home from finishing his final paper right now. 

They had to push back their dinner plans by a week, thanks to finals coming down upon the senior students like a storm and Chanyeol not wanting to let his stressing over his exams get in the way of enjoying a nice night out with Kyungsoo. (On the actual night of their anniversary Kyungsoo had supplied mid-cramming Chanyeol with warm food and drinks and coaxed him to bed and cuddled him to sleep, which had been pretty romantic but not nearly as Special as Kyungsoo wanted it to be.)

Kyungsoo huffs, quickly turning his attention back to his stir-fry and attending to it lest it burn. “You have 10 seconds,” he says, monotone. Baekhyun heaves a sigh of relief, runs to the fridge to get a bottle of Coke, and gets the fuck out of dodge, leaving Kyungsoo to his work.

Kyungsoo takes a bite of his stir-fry, frowns and adds in a pinch of salt, stirring it well into the mess of fried mushrooms and peppers and tomatoes. The pasta’s sitting neatly in the strainer, and the kimchi and strips of bacon are in their respective containers ready to be mixed in at any time. He even went out and bought  _ cider  _ for this - the good stuff too, the quality unrefined organic orchard-made stuff, that sits sweet and rough and thick on the tongue. Chanyeol’s favorite. It’s going to be the best dinner, or so help him, Kyungsoo’s just going to throw out the whole effort and just resort to Plan B: Kyungsoo spread out on the dinner table in nothing but his lacy apron for Chanyeol to see when he comes home, followed by dragging Chanyeol to his room and riding him until the sun comes up.

He finishes the stir-fry and sets it aside in a bowl, throwing the bacon in followed by the kimchi and stirring well, the aroma rising up and filling the kitchen, seeping out to the rest of the apartment, suffusing Kyungsoo’s lungs with the familiar scent of spice. Kimchi spaghetti is one of Chanyeol’s favorite foods - his mother used to make it for him and his sister as a child, and he loves the stuff more than anything else. Kyungsoo had actually called his mother to ask for the recipe, and she had happily obliged.

He stirs the mix around one more time, taste-tests, and deems it fit to add the pasta into, singing along to the Gallant song playing from the speakers and swaying back and forth as he works. There’s enough pasta in the bowl to feed a small family - or in this case, four hungry college students with a love of eating. If there’s leftovers once Chanyeol and him are through with dinner, he’ll just tell Jongdae and Baekhyun they can have it - they all share the apartment, after all.

The spaghetti is nearly done when the lock on the front door rattles and clicks, the door hinges creaking loudly and footsteps thumping in. Kyungsoo smiles softly to himself as he hears the dull thud of a bag hitting the floor and the vibrations of footsteps coming closer and closer, bracing for impact.

A pair of strong arms wind around his torso, a soft pair of lips against his ear - Kyungsoo barely startles, leaning back into the touch and sighing happily as Chanyeol enfolds him into his embrace. “Yeol,” Kyungsoo murmurs, continuing to stir his spaghetti. “How did it go?”

“Probably awful,” Chanyeol grumbles. His voice is even more husky than usual, a rough bass rumble from low in his chest. He smells like must and the air freshener the cleaners spritz the university halls with and the lavender softener that infuses all of their clothes.

“Awful for you is an A for anyone else, Yeol,” Kyungsoo snorts. “You did fine, don’t worry about it. It’s done. And if you’re trying to get any of this, you’re going to have to  _ wait  _ like the rest of them until  _ I’m  _ done,” he warns, batting away a hand attempting to creep over to swipe a taste. The benefit of his height when compared to Chanyeol is that he’s at the perfect height to elbow his boyfriend in the gut when necessary with little effort. The ‘oof’ sound that Chanyeol lets out is so satisfying.

“So cruel,” Chanyeol whines, and Kyungsoo can’t even see his face but he’s definitely pouting, “I come back from my final exam, after spending hours working my ass off to maintain my GPA, and this is the welcome I receive?”

“It’s the welcome you deserve,” Kyungsoo says, dryly. “This whole dinner is for you, dipshit, the least you can do is wait until I’m done making it.”

Chanyeol huffs, laughter in his tone. “Fine, fine, no need to get tetchy ‘bout it.” He hums, warm hands slinking down to rest at Kyungsoo’s waist, Kyungsoo quietly preening at the touch as he turns off the stove and moves over to the counter to grab a bowl, Chanyeol trailing after him attached by his hands. The younger takes out the plates and cutlery, stacking them up at the side carefully, before turning around and winding a hand round Chanyeol’s neck to drag him down for a kiss.

“Love you, ‘Soo,” Chanyeol says, grinning, murmuring the words against Kyungsoo’s lips, pressing him against the counter and squeezing his hips to drag a soft moan out of his boyfriend. “Three years. Can’t believe we’ve been boyfriends this long.”

“Can’t believe I’ve put up with your flat ass this long,” Kyungsoo mutters, sighing as Chanyeol moves over to nibble at his ear, sucking at the spot on his neck just under his jaw that makes him melt into a soft little puddle.

“But you  _ love  _ this flat ass,” Chanyeol croons, wiggling it for effect. “It’s one of my best features~” Kyungsoo chokes on his laughter.

“I do, in fact, love your flat ass,” Kyungsoo snorts, reaching over to pat it. “I love all of you, flat ass included.”

“Oh, so my ass is just part of a  _ package deal _ now?” Chanyeol whines, puffing out a hot breath onto the nape of Kyungsoo’s neck, cracking a grin as Kyungsoo fairly shakes with hitched laughter under him. “It’s not the free sample in your 5-pack bargain buy. I am  _ offended -  _ I should just take me and my ass to a man who will  _ appreciate  _ it  _ fully _ for the  _ majesty  _ that it is-”

“So fucking full of yourself,” Kyungsoo giggles, groping Chanyeol’s ass to make him squeak. “I’m sorry I haven’t been giving it enough attention. I’ll show you just how much I love it later when I eat you out, hm?”

“Is that a promise,” Chanyeol says, leaning back to meet Kyungsoo’s gaze, eyes sparkling. “Because like, today’s not the day for it, I had spicy food yesterday, but _ are you really gonna _ -”

“Oh my god you’re fucking  _ gross _ ,” Kyungsoo groans, smacking Chanyeol’s side. “Yes, I will definitely eat you out soon, please refrain from mentioning fucking  _ poop  _ in the  _ kitchen  _ you savage-” He’s cut off when Chanyeol lets out a cheer and pulls him into a deep, hungry kiss, licking into his mouth with abandon. He tastes like leftover coffee and sugar and desire and the full force of it makes every nerve in Kyungsoo’s body light up and sing with want.

“What are you-” Kyungsoo squawks as Chanyeol drops to his knees, nuzzling into Kyungsoo’s crotch, and despite how his dick jerks in his sweats at the attention the fact that they’re doing this here makes that want get pushed aside in the face of  _ basic decency _ \- “no, do  _ not _ , Park Chanyeol the kitchen is a sacred place-” Kyungsoo hisses, trying to both move away and bat his boyfriend’s head away. “-I am  _ covered  _ in grease and sweat this is the  _ unsexiest  _ location-”

“But I wanna suck your dick, ‘Soo,” Chanyeol whines, fighting away Kyungsoo’s attempts to pull him off from his prize, one hand working to tug down the elastic hem of Kyungsoo’s sweats. He looks up at him from the floor, flashing his biggest needy puppy dog eyes and pouting. “I love you and I’m  _ really  _ turned on and so are you so can I  _ please  _ suck you off?”

“Really?” Kyungsoo groans, leaning back against the counter and pressing a hand to his face in exasperation, already crumbling. “Right here? Right now? You want to blow me  _ here? _ ”

Chanyeol grins from ear-to-ear, licking his lips, taking the lack of no as a go-ahead and already pulling Kyungsoo’s dick out of his pants. “Just think of it as an anniversary gift slash post-finals victory snack. All that thinking and writing is fucking exhausting, y’know. Happy Anniversary, babe~”

“Romance is dead and you just killed it,” Kyungsoo sighs, heart pounding and breath hitching, threading his fingers through his boyfriend’s red-dyed hair as Chanyeol parts his lips around the head, sweet and messy and eager, warm and wanting and all his.

 


	4. DAY 4: Sun/Moon // my day and night are all you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from shangri-la by vixx. YET ANOTHER QUICK MESS FROM YOURS TRULY,,, this is set in the rhea'verse, which will probably never see the light of day, so enjoy this little snippet. Rated T for non-explicit dick mentions (´ ᴗ｀✿)

“My prince,” Kyungsoo breathes, softly, lowly, the sound rough as only a silver mage can accomplish, mesmer woven into every wavering note. 

Here now, in the deep of the night, with the whole palace asleep, they find their time and steal away, lying together in the prince’s bedchambers in a cloud of sunsilk sheets and feather-stuffed pillows. The moonlight drips in pale and gentle from the glass windows, made ethereal by the gossamer curtains, spreading the light thin and casting the room in a soft silvery glow. Kyungsoo’s bare milky skin is warm, sticky from sex, covered in ink sigils and vows; his silken hair dark as the blackest of night skies, his hooded eyes like pools of molten silver, alight from within by his own mana pulsing through his blood and bones, enough for Chanyeol to feel the hum of his power through touch. 

“Kyungsoo-yah,” Chanyeol murmurs, tender, carding one hand through his messy hair, the fuzz along the sides of his scalp contrasting against the thick tangled locks on top. Sex hair is a good look on him. “Stop calling me that. Feels weird coming from you.”

“Well, I always thought you got off on it,” Kyungsoo hums, bucking his hips to accentuate his point, Chanyeol’s spent cock jerking weakly underneath him and his muscles tensing up at the sudden sensation. He smirks, slow and filthy. “Your  _ highness _ .”

“ _ Kyungsooooo, _ ” Chanyeol whines, pouting now, and winds his arms tight around the boy lying on top of him. “Enough people call me that on a daily basis, I really don’t need it coming from you, please.”

“My prince. My lord. Your  _ Radiance _ ,” Kyungsoo continues, grinning now, and earns a horrified squawk from the other. His laughter sounds like the chiming of the Temple bells, deep and resonant, every nerve in Chanyeol’s body singing in harmony with it. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop. But you might end up being called that someday, you know.”

“Shemesh have mercy, I hope that never happens,” Chanyeol mumbles, tugging Kyungsoo up to nuzzle into the junction between neck and shoulder, breathing in the scent of jasmine and incense and earth that clings to all of the holy folk of the Gardens, mixed with sweat and sex and the underlying scent of iron and ozone that comes from silver magic, a taste that’s wholly Kyungsoo. “Me becoming Emperor sounds like a nightmare. I mean, first of all, Yura would have to either be dead, disgraced or abdicated for it to happen. And then imagine  _ me  _ on that throne, trying to do Father’s job. The empire would burn down within a week.”

“You sell yourself too short,” Kyungsoo sighs, patting Chanyeol’s side soothingly, letting out a pleased little coo when Chanyeol nips at his neck right over a tattoo, doing his best to leave a new hickey to match the other ones scattered there. “You’ve been trained for a position of command your whole life, Yeol. I doubt you’d flounder as much as you seem to believe.”

“I’d rather stay a prince forever and not have to know if I’d succeed or fail,” Chanyeol mutters against Kyungsoo’s skin, “No pressure to be perfect or continue on the royal line if you’re the second-born. Just to uphold the name and to serve the empire.” He bites at the shell of Kyungsoo’s ear, feels him shiver. “And I’d be allowed to marry you.”

“I’d have to finish my service first,” Kyungsoo reminds him sternly, though Chanyeol can see and feel the rosy flush crawling down his neck, “They don’t just let us us Temple singers go that easy. Being the prince’s lover is one thing, but being the prince’s consort is another thing entirely.”

Chanyeol hums in assent. “I know. But when your tenure is finished. If I asked you to marry me.” He asks, hesitant. “If I asked you to spend the rest of your life with me. Would you?”

“We’ll see where we are in six years when I’m allowed to give you a response,” Kyungsoo murmurs, “But I doubt my answer then will be any different from what it is now.”

“And that answer would be?” 

Kyungsoo groans. “Do I have to say it out loud?”

“ _ Yes _ ,” Chanyeol insists, pulling back to look at Kyungsoo, widening his own eyes pleadingly. “ _ C’moooon _ ,”

“Ugh, don’t give me that face,” Kyungsoo says, batting at Chanyeol’s bare chest, groaning. “Yes, of course I’d marry you, you damn overgrown sunstruck puppy, quit trying to emotionally manipulate me like that-” He stops, eyes fluttering shut, sighs softly into Chanyeol’s mouth as the prince surges forward to kiss him. 

“You  _ loooove  _ me,” Chanyeol coos, the curves of his chapped lips upturned and stretched wide, “You’d be my husband  _ right now _ if you could, you’d steal an airship with me and fly all the way to Sapir’auma to get married if I asked-”

“Yareakh knows why I love you, you insufferable child,” Kyungsoo mutters, letting out a quiet moan as Chanyeol’s hands wander down to his ass, warm palms kneading the flesh greedily, adoringly.

“How scandalous, using the Pale Lady’s name in vain when she’s your patron-” Chanyeol mock-gasps, and is met with a scowl and a sharp tug on his ear.

“I feel like the goddess’s patronage gives me more leeway to do so, actually,” Kyungsoo sniffs, “The moon chose me to carry out her will, aren’t I allowed to invoke her when in times of great emotional turmoil?”

“ _ I’m _ your great emotional turmoil?” Chanyeol bats his eyes, gripping Kyungsoo’s hips and rolling them over so Chanyeol’s lying on top of him, eyes shining gold in the moonlight. “I didn’t know your feelings for me were so  _ strong _ , Kyungsoo~”

“Shut up and just fuck me already, Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo snaps, flushing hot, gripping Chanyeol’s hand and dragging the prince down into another deep kiss, their hips rolling together into another dance, every fiber in both of their bodies thrumming with a song only they can hear, the moon and stars their only witness.


	5. DAY 5: Wishes/Regrets // and in the middle of the night, i may watch you go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title taken from lover of the light by mumford and sons. this particular au is. kind of a dodgy mess. but here is part one. part two will follow tomorrow <3 canlie is the chinese version of chanyeol's name, and piao is park in chinese as well.

He’s a child when Kyungsoo first meets him. Piao Canlie looks up with his teary amber eyes, sobs wracking his small frame. “Why-why’d you take hi-him away?”

Kyungsoo stares. 

It’s a surprise - while not unheard of, it is very rare to come across those gifted with the Sight, and even more so to encounter those capable of perceiving angels. Kyungsoo peers closer, and finds the telltale ring of white surrounding his pupil, the halo that signifies his abilities and marks his soul. 

He won’t stop crying. Kyungsoo always gets - unsettled, when he has to witness humans caught up in their emotions, and it’s not like he was ever taught how to deal with human children. He’s a psychopomp, not a counselor. But something in his soul softens at the sight of this child’s snotty nose and teary eyes. He kneels down carefully, reaches out to pat the boy’s messy black head as he’s seen other humans do with their offspring. He’s rewarded with a flinch and a hiccuping gasp.

“Do not cry for him, child.” he tries. “All things must die. It was simply his time. He passed on peacefully, unaware of his impending end.”

The human child cries harder. Kyungsoo was not forged in the fires of God’s creation to tend to human children, damn it. What would Suho do?

Suho, guardian angel and protector of children, runs on a completely different thought process than Kyungsoo, built for reaping and guiding lost souls. He conjures up a memory of watching the elder angel tend to his young charge, and imitates the position, sinking down onto one knee and hesitantly clasping the child on one shoulder (which is about as far as he’s willing to go with human skin contact, unlike chronic hugger Suho).

The boy sobs, sniffling, wiping away great fat tears with grubby fists. “Your grandfather lived a long and full life.” Kyungsoo starts, hesitantly, “He had few regrets upon his passing, mostly related to being unable to kiss his daughter one last time or his inability to be there for your growing into adulthood. But he left his body with few resentments or lingering grievances-”

The child cuts him off, looking up at him, lashes shimmering with wetness. “Y-you’re a reaper, r-right? Can’t- can’t you-” the child hiccups again, collecting himself, “-can’t you bring him b-back? I-I just wa - wanna say g’bye-” The child interrupts himself with a damp, miserable hiccup, sobs clawing their way out of his small throat. 

Kyungsoo furrows his brows, considering the request. The soul of the boy’s grandfather is currently hovering in orb form, tucked into the folds of his robes. It is but a small request from a young member of God’s chosen few. He may honor it, for a short while. And maybe if he does, the child will stop  _ crying _ .

He reaches into his robe, grasping the soul carefully and bringing out, cradling it in his hands. A mortal soul, when detached from its earthly restraints, appears as a ball of light and flickering flame, warm to the touch. The child stares at it with unmatched focus, the wet trails on his cheeks shining in the glow of his grandfather’s soul. “Grandpa?” He whispers, holding his hands out.

The child is intuitive. Kyungsoo hums, pleased. This will make things easier. “You may speak to him one final time. Say what you must.” he says, and presses the soul gently into the boy’s outstretched palms.

The child stiffens up as the soul pulses at the touch, and then bursts into a fresh wave of tears, cradling it close to his chest, tucking his head in so as to press his face against its surface. “ _ Grandpa _ ,” he whimpers, hiccuping ( _ again _ , Kyungsoo thinks, a touch bewildered), “G-grandpa, ‘m’sorry,  _ ‘m’sorry _ , I love you, ‘m’sorry _ ‘m’sorry  _ I was  _ stu-stupid  _ ‘n  _ mad _ , I-” he stops, blinking slowly as the soul hums. Kyungsoo cannot hear what the deceased is speaking - those words are for the child alone.

“I’ll take care of grand- grandma ‘n mom,” he sniffles, lengthy pauses between each sentence he speaks, nodding intermittently at words only he can hear. “Yes. Yes, grandpa. I’ll g-grow well. Don’t worry. I’ll feed the chickens, I won’t forget. I’ll be good. I won’t cry so mu - much. Love you. I love you. I l-love you too, grandpa,” the boy whispers softly.

Kyungsoo shifts uneasily. Any longer in the boy’s hands, and the soul might form an earthly bond, and that would be a whole new mess. “Child, it is time,” he says, reaching over. The child, thankfully, gives up the soul with little fuss, still sniffling and shaking with hitched sobs, but evidently calming. Kyungsoo takes the soul into his hands with a small sigh of relief, and breathes out the rites, letting the soul rise up into the sky and spiral up towards the heavens, disappearing.

Of all things, the child takes the silence as initiative to throw himself into Kyungsoo’s arms. Kyungsoo naturally freezes up. How does one react when one has never been embraced before? How does one embrace a human child? What is this child’s purpose in doing so?  _ Why is he wiping his face against his robes. _ Kyungsoo panics a little, but as a good reaper, he stays in place, impassive, letting the boy do as he wishes.

“ _ T-thank youuuu- _ ” the child bawls, weeping into the folds of Kyungsoo’s robes, “thank you, thank you,  _ thank you- _ ”

“Please stop,” Kyungsoo mutters, trying to pry the child off. Mercifully, the boy relents, releasing him from his tiny arms - still clinging onto the ends of his cloak with grubby fists. Kyungsoo tugs lightly. “I have to go, child. I have my duties to carry out.”

“C-Canlie,” the boy says, looking up at him, amber eyes aglow with light. “Piao Canlie. That’s my name. Thank - Thank you for letting me say goodbye.”

“It was nothing, Piao Canlie,” Kyungsoo says, awkwardly. Can the child  _ please  _ let go of his cloak soon. He has another hourglass about to run out that he must attend to. “I must go.”

“Will I-” the child - Canlie - says, finally letting go, sniffling, “Will I ever see you again?”

“That remains to be seen,” Kyungsoo responds, rising to his feet. “When death next comes to you, I may be there. Until then, Piao Canlie.”

He blinks away with a flap of his wings, on to the next soul, mind still churning with thoughts and newfound, odd feelings bubbling in his chest. Perhaps he should go and consult Suho after this.

 

-

 

When Kyungsoo next meets him, he's a boy knee-deep in adolescence, lanky and long-limbed and growing unsteadily into his loping, awkward gait with the grace of an unsteady newborn fawn. His eyes are wide, as long-lashed and haloed and amber as ever, shining in the sunlight filtering in through the window as he stands frozen in the doorway, eyes locked upon Kyungsoo's hooded, winged form by the bed of his slumbering grandmother.   
  
"You?" He whispers, deep voice cracking in half with emotion. "Oh merciful Guanyin."   
  
His knuckles, scraped raw, evidence of roughhousing and hard work all over the lean muscle building on his form. His sunkissed skin and dark locks, dirty and grubby, messy from a day undoubtedly spent out playing with with the other boys in town. His lips, chapped and pink, agape with realisation, the knowledge glimmering wetly in his eyes.   
  
"No. Not yet. Please, not yet." The boy whimpers, trembling. "Please, no, no, there's still so much more I need to say to her-"   
  
"His time will come soon," Kyungsoo says, softly, voice rusty with disuse. It's been some time since he's had to speak to another being. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like. "Not quite yet. But within the next few days. You still have some time left with her, Piao Canlie.” Kyungsoo knows exactly how much sand the old woman has left in her hourglass (thirty-nine hours and sixteen minutes and forty-five seconds and-) but according to Suho, vague approximations of time will make the human feel less anxious about the impending death.    
As if his name is the trigger, Canlie rushes to the bedside and drops to his knees, hunched over his grandmother's form; presses a hand to his mouth, choking back a muffled sob.    
  
"She's old, for this land's standards," Kyungsoo says, as gently as he can. He's been practising, for the next time that he had to console a Sight-blessed human. So far, this boy has been the only one he's met. "Old, wizened. She's lived a long life."   
  
The boy hiccups, sniffling. "Y-yes, she has." He looks at the reaper, blinking away his tears. "You still remember my name, huh?"   
  
"As mortals go, you are unique among all of your kind, Piao Canlie," Kyungsoo says. "Do you not think it odd, that you alone can gaze upon the forms of the unseen?"   
  
"Ah, really, that's odd?" Canlie laughs, sounding more like a sob. "I j-just thought it was something everyone could do, y'know?"   
  
"I am unsure as to how you came to that conclusion," Kyungsoo mutters. "You have been blessed with the Sight, you alone among all your peers. Surely you have noticed this."   
  
"I was joking," Canlie sniffs, muffling a small giggle. "You really don't understand humans, do you?"   
  
"I am a reaper, as I have told you," Kyungsoo says. "I do not feel mortal emotions. I am not bound to the physical realm. There is no reason for me to understand humans, nor do I have the leisure to make sense of your ways. I convey intent and nothing more."   
  
"Must be sad, then," Canlie says, softly, looking down at his grandmother, one thumb caressing the wrinkled skin of her forearm. "Not being able to make jokes, or laugh, or understand humour. What kind of life is that?"   
  
"I do not have a  _ life _ , Piao Canlie," Kyungsoo says, a little confused. "I am a reaper. I have repeated this a number of times. I am a servant of God and nothing more.”

Canlie looks up at him, eyes shining wetly. “But you can  _ think _ ,” he says, hoarsely, with conviction. “You can understand and speak and  _ feel.  _ You breathe. You see the world. Is that not life enough?”

 

-

 

 

 

It’s a cloudy afternoon on a day between summer and autumn, the wind starting to pick up the bite of frost from far north, the leaves still green and hale, the heat beginning to disperse. “You’re late,” Canlie pouts, sitting up from where his head was pillowed by the trunk of a tree.

“And you’re not supposed to be slacking off,” Kyungsoo says, dryly, pulling off the hood of his cloak. “Is it not time for your training?”

Canlie waves an arm in the air, careless as those of his age often are, a young man of nineteen years and growing stronger by the day. “There’s still some time before we’re all dragged away for enlistment to serve our glorious nation, I think. All the more reason to make these remaining days count. Now c’mon, I found another new spot to show you!” he chirps, somehow managing the feat even with his bass rumble of a voice. 

Kyungsoo obligingly follows him into the forest, trailing behind him wordlessly as Canlie navigates his way through the woods and up the mountain, stepping carefully and quietly so as to not attract attention, chattering softly to Kyungsoo all the while about his days - about how Aunt Jia had just conceived, about little cousin Yao managing to topple over his father’s jars, about the storm that had passed through a few days before and left the whole region damp and singing with renewed life after a season of drought. He points out little things with bright sharp eyes - the footprints of deer and other beasts in the soft soil, marks and scratches left in bark by predators, the calls of birds echoing from high up in the canopy.

“Try not to fall, Canlie,” Kyungsoo says, a touch worried as Canlie clambers down mossy boulders and dew-slicked rocks. Canlie, of all things, rolls his eyes and flashes a grin up at the reaper.

“I’ve gone this route twice before, I’m fine,” he says, reaching the last step and promptly tripping onto his face. A chuckle bubbles up in Kyungsoo’s chest at the irony - something he’d never experienced before this boy, before Canlie had opened up his eyes and his world and his heart.

“You laughed!” Canlie crows triumphantly, face still half-mushed into the forest floor. He lifts himself up shakily, dusting himself off, beaming brightly. “And a few years ago you said you ‘didn’t understand humour’. Look where we are now!”

Kyungsoo snorts. “Cease your preening and continue on, before we burn any more daylight with your antics.”

“But you  _ like  _ my antics,” Canlie pouts, but obeys, continuing walking on. “It’s only a little bit farther from here, no need to worry.”

Finally, they come into a small shadowed clearing, leaves from far above casting dappled shadows and blotting out sunlight as they shiver in the wind. In the center of the clearing, a massive, ancient tree towers, its trunk dark and thick, its roots gnarled and deep-seated, its branches stretching out towards the heavens.

“It’s the oldest tree in the forest,” Canlie says, voice reverent. The leaf-dappled light dances in his dark hair, over his scarred sunkissed skin. “It’s probably old enough to have seen the last fifteen emperors rise and fall.” He gestures at the trunk. “And we’re gonna climb it.”

Kyungsoo gives him a flat stare. “‘We’.”

“Okay,  _ I’m  _ going to climb it, and you’re going to cheat and help me cheat too because you can fly,” Canlie grumbles. “But you understand. Just watch and follow me.”

Despite his general clumsiness and resemblance to a baby giraffe, Kyungsoo must admit that Piao Canlie is startlingly talented when he puts his mind to something. He climbs the tree with long-limbed grace, strong arms hugging the bark and callused hands gripping solid branches as he monkeys up the tree with surprising agility. Kyungsoo gives him occasional boosts up where the branches thin out, lifting him up to safer footholds with little effort. It takes him some time and a lot of sweating to reach the summit, but he finally clambers up onto the topmost safe branch and slumps back, panting and grinning wildly as Kyungsoo perches on the same branch with the ease of the celestial, wings fluttering.

Kyungsoo raises his eyebrows, folding his wings back up. “And now that you’ve accomplished your feat, what was the purpose of this ascent?”

Canlie laughs, breathless. “Take a look!”

Kyungsoo turns around and stops. Takes in the sight, gazing upon the world below with new eyes, the treetops all laid out before him, a sea of viridian and emerald leaves, a chorus of birds singing bright and cheerful, all the way back down the mountainside. Where the forest ends, the plains begin - rolling fields of brown-gold, the river winding through the grasses sinuously unto the horizon, the afternoon sun bathing the western skies in blue hues, the clouds above cast in ivory, and a trail of dark soot and ash rising up from a village below. In the distance, where the earth and the sky seem to meet, the snow-capped mountains loom, implacable and everlasting. God’s creation, sprawling endlessly onwards, infinite in its vivid majesty.

“It’s beautiful,” Kyungsoo says, softly. He barely starts when he feels Canlie’s arms come around him from behind, encasing him in a warm embrace, tickling his feathers. The touch sends a minute tremor throughout Kyungsoo’s form, and he twists around in the human’s hold to face him properly, looking upon his expression. 

“The view’s even better with you in it,” Canlie murmurs lowly. The halos in his irises shine even brighter in the sunlight. He licks his lips. Something thumps painfully in Kyungsoo’s chest. 

Canlie leans forward, slowly, eyes hooded and lips bitten-red; Kyungsoo is the one who meets him halfway. He stinks of sweat and bark and forest, tastes like salt and iron and spice, his hands coming forward to fit round Kyungsoo’s waist through the ethereal black fabric of his cloak. His lips are chapped and slick with saliva, and their foreheads and noses bump together clumsily in their attempt. Their mouths part with a soft sound, and Kyungsoo backs away, bewildered and feeling rather embarrassed even as he yearns for more of the contact, the unfamiliar sensation of heat rising in his cheeks and prickling down his neck. Canlie blinks at him, dazed, hands still fisted in the fabric of Kyungsoo’s cloak, and breaks into a lopsided grin.

“You’re blushing,” he whispers, softly. “I didn’t know spirits could blush.”

“I am a  _ reaper _ ,” Kyungsoo snaps, trying to collect the melting bits of his composure and mold them back into shape. “I do not - I am unused to these, these amorous sensations.”

“There’s no need to wrap your feelings up in all those fancy words,” Canlie laughs, beaming. “You just need to  _ feel _ . I can teach you.”

Kyungsoo snorts. “Don’t pretend like you’ve any more experience than I, Piao Canlie. The girls of your village may flit around and dote upon you, but you and I both know that you’ve never paid any of them mind.”

“Well,” Canlie mumbles, “There’s really no reason to even consider courting any of them. There’s only room for one reaper in this heart.”

Kyungsoo squints at him. “I may be inexperienced with matters of human courtship, but even I can plainly see how contrived that sentence was.”

The red dusted across Canlie’s cheeks darkens in intensity. “The intent came across, though, didn’t it? I mean, you understand what I meant by that - that kiss, didn’t you?”

Kyungsoo blinks. “You desire me romantically and sexually. That is what kisses of this kind generally imply, do they not?”

Canlie groans, burying his face in his hands. “Oh, merciful Guanyin, don’t say it like  _ that _ .”

Another laugh bubbles up from deep within Kyungsoo’s chest, spilling out soft and affectionate. He gently pries Canlie’s hands away from his face, leaning forward until there’s barely any distance between their faces, Canlie’s amber eyes a hundred times brighter up this close.

“If you think that your message was unclear,” Kyungsoo hums, “you’re welcome to try again.”

The resulting blush is absolutely furious, but the lips that come forward to meet his are far less enraged and far more amorous. They figure out the mechanics of it within a few tries, Canlie tilting his head so as to slot his lips more neatly against his without their noses crashing together, Kyungsoo spreading his wings in order to enfold Canlie into his embrace. They spend what feels like an age this way, kissing tender and messy and tentative, hesitance melting away as they grow more accustomed to the sensations, curled up together high above the ground with no-one but the birds and the trees there to see them.

(Canlie’s hourglass drips away within the folds of his robe, unseen but always felt, a constant pressure upon Kyungsoo’s mind - six-hundred and ten days and nineteen hours and forty-four minutes and nine seconds -)


	6. DAY 6: Yesterday/Tomorrow // to have and to hold (a lover of the lights)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title taken from lover of the light by mumford and sons. pt. 2 of the reaper au, following from last chapter! this one is pretty messy, but i've stitched it together as best as i can. warning for major character death! hope you enjoy (´ ꒳ ` ✿)

Daybreak, sunlight spilling out from the horizon and washing the world in fiery hues, in a field far from the mountains where Kyungsoo spent so many of Canlie’s days. War cries and the sharp sounds of steel blades striking, choked noises and screams and the thunder of war drums and hooves on the earth.

“Kyungsoo,” Piao Canlie murmurs, voice rough, soft, hands trembling and bloodied and terribly gentle as he cradles a dark head in his lap. “Please, tell me, not him-”

Kyungsoo folds his wings up, kneels down. “Not him, today.”

He’s not here for Wu Shixun, whose life will run for another two decades (and sixty-seven days and fourteen hours and thirty-two seconds-) after they get him to the medics and manage to bring him out of his unconscious state, even if the wound has pierced through his shoulder. Canlie, though - he managed to remove the blade that pierced his stomach, but soon he will bleed out and leave his corpse for the next life. The soldier’s eyes dim with resignation, shoulders sagging under dented armour with relief and sorrow.

“Ah. So that’s how it is, then.” He gives a pained laugh which transforms into a hacking cough. Flecks of red fly from his lips, spattering against his worn clothes. “Kinda funny thinkin’ bout it now, but I always thought I’d live a little longer, y’know?”

“All things must come to an end,” the reaper says, softly. “For you, that moment is now.”

Canlie sighs, slow, the sound wet with blood. “Thought I’d be more prepared for this, after knowing you this long. Me rather than him, at least. Shixun deserves a long, happy, peaceful life.” The chuckle he lets out sounds like a sob. “Can you...could you sing for me? Till it ends?”

There’s a lump building up in his throat. It’s a disconcerting sensation. “Which song?”

“Anything you w-want,” He smiles, coughing a little, reaching up with a trembling hand to cradle the reaper’s cold cheek. Kyungsoo presses his palm there, desperately drinking in the touch, helping him hold his failing limbs up. “S’long as it’s from you.”

Kyungsoo shudders, nods. Leans down, kisses him softly, tasting blood and iron, salt and ash on his tongue. “Don’t cry, ‘Soo-yah,” Chanyeol murmurs against his lips, stroking his cheek with one bloody thumb. Kyungsoo blinks, becoming aware of the foreign sensation of wetness, dripping from his eyes. “Hey, shh, it’s okay. I wish I’d had more time with you, but you’ll be alright without me. And you can always find me again, y’know? This isn’t the last time you’ll see me.”

“As if I’d ever let you go, Piao Canlie,” Kyungsoo chokes, breath stuttering, eyes watering, and reaches out to pull Canlie’s head to lie in his lap. “I will find you again, I swear. You’re not allowed to go and leave me alone.”

Canlie laughs, smiling, and coughs up a little more blood. “I’ll hold - hold you to that,” he hums. “And if not, I’ll come find you myself. Now, don’t you owe a dying man a song?”

Kyungsoo nods. (The hourglass drips away - five minutes and fifty-nine seconds and eight milliseconds more -)

He steadies his breath. The notes flow from his throat smoothly, a song in a language long lost to men, a melody that Kyungsoo used to watch Suho sing to his charges in times long past. Canlie hums along faintly, a half-step behind Kyungsoo, his voice creaky and hoarse, fighting through the pain, summoning up the last of his strength to watch his angel sing him to sleep. The haloes in his irises shimmer through his tears.

With the unconscious form of his little brother at his side and a reaper singing a soft, nostalgic lullaby, Piao Canlie, twenty-one years old, closes his eyes, and breathes his last.

Kyungsoo is there to catch his soul as it leaves his body, a spark of warmth and light and life cradled in his hands. He curls up around it, holding it close to his chest, tucking his head in to press his cheek against it, feeling Canlie’s essence pulse in his hold, a tiny brilliant dazzling star.

 _Kyungsoo,_ Canlie sings. _Look for me. Come find me again._

Kyungsoo’s heart fractures a little, cracking inside his chest. “Don’t you _dare_ die before I come and find you.”

 _I’ll try not to,_ Canlie laughs, radiant and unbound by the shackles of his mortal body. _Take care of yourself. I love you, Kyungsoo. I’ll see you again soon._

A sob wracks his body .He doesn’t want to let him go. “I lo - I love you too.”

Even as unfamiliar moisture drips from in his eyes and his heart constricts painfully, he whispers the words that he’s spoken a thousand times before.

Canlie’s soul ascends skyward, vanishing in a shimmer of radiance into the heavens above, bound for the next life. Kyungsoo is still here, kneeling beside his still-cooling corpse, war raging around them, immortal and deathless and so very, very alone.

It hurts, it _hurts_ , every shred of his form _aches_ with the force of it, hollowness sinking in bone-deep. The world seems gray, dark and dull, sunless and cold.

(This, Kyungsoo learns, is sorrow. It is the first time of many more to come.)

-

 

 

In his next life, Kyungsoo keeps his promise, finds him again - this time a bright-eyed, bronze-skinned young woman amongst desert sands, wrapped in white cloth and tending to goats.

 _Ariel,_ the herders call, echoing across the plains, teasing and wanting, _if you stay out too long the sun will fry your pretty face._

 _Ariel,_ the women call, hands cradling babes and working at cloth, affectionate and maternal. _if you keep only goats for company when will you find a husband?_

 _Ariel,_ Kyungsoo whispers to himself, watching her from afar, her amber eyes devoid of the ring of white she bore in her first life. Saltwater trails down his cheeks. _Canlie, my Canlie. God has blinded you to me._

 

 _(Karma,_ Suho tells him, gravely, softly, when Kyungsoo comes to him once more anguished and aching in unfamiliar ways. _For daring to stray from your duty. The seraphs clouded your mortal’s Sight, stripped away God’s own blessing, because it brought you to him. Your mortal will stumble through all of his lives, blinded where he should have Seen, as the price of your fling together._

 _They - They never told me they had -_ Kyungsoo says, stopped by the slow shake of Suho’s head.

_You would have stopped them if they had told you. Angels and men are not meant to intertwine, little reaper. Doing so has only brought pain upon you both._

_But I never strayed from my duty,_ Kyungsoo whispers, feeling hollow and empty, but not - never - regretting. _I loved Canlie, and I still love them now, but that would have never caused me to Fall._

 _Did you never consider trying to extend his mortal lifespan?_ Suho asks, his voice the ringing of thunderous bells, implacable. _If the seraphs had decreed that your mortal had to be removed from the cycle, would you have stolen their soul from the heavens? If they asked it of you, would you Fall?_

Kyungsoo bites his lip. Looks away.

_Call me what you wish, cast me down if you must. But I will carry out my duty still, and I will love Canlie still, no matter which life or what face he takes._

Suho - his nine wings drooping, his thousand eyes half-lidded, his crown of flame dimming - Suho looks sad. _That is what I feared you would say._ He flicks his wings, turns away. _So long as you chase after them, you will suffer. You know this._

Kyungsoo bows his head, resolute. _Canlie is worth suffering for.)_

 

Even if she cannot see him, Kyungsoo lingers round their little human settlement, collecting their sick and elderly when their times come, watching Ariel blossom into adulthood, ever fiery and independent, only ever falling for one man and carrying on strong when he perishes from illness. She becomes a role model, a mother figure and aunt for the youth of the village, teaching them how best to care for the herd, what plants to harvest out on the plains and in the hills, how to track animals and hunt them down if they must.

When she dies, her dark hair is white-streaked, her face sunkissed and wrinkled and marked with age and laughter lines, her gnarled hands clutched by those she loves, clustered around her deathbed. Her soul is just as brilliant as before. Kyungsoo catches her as she coalesces, clutches her to his chest, feels her warmth and the expanse of her love and sorrow and passion and emotion sink into him at the contact, filling the hollow space inside him. The sound of storms after drought, the smell of stew and dinner after a long day, the sensation of coarse goat fur underneath rough fingertips - Canlie - Ariel - feels like coming home.

 _You are malakh,_ Ariel whispers, voice echoing inside his head, a note of awe in her creaky tone. _Protector, guide. Please, I beg of you, guardian - watch over my family, keep them safe. This is an old woman’s dying wish._

“Of course I will,’ Kyungsoo whispers, cradling her close. “Anything you ask.” She doesn’t remember him. After every life, a soul’s memories are wiped clean - but still, he’d hoped, he’d _hoped_.

She sighs, softly. _Then there is nothing more I need. I thank you._

He chokes back a sob. He feels - he _feels_ -

He stops. Whispers the rites. Carries out his duties. Lets her go again, sending her on into the next life in a shower of sparks and stardust.

Ariel’s family wail and weep around her body, grieving. Kyungsoo stays, silent and aching and unseen, and shares in their mourning.

 

-

 

In the next life - a girl, with long dark hair and sharp dark eyes and porcelain skin, swathed in silk kimono and hidden behind sliding doors and wooden walls, spending her days amongst green gardens and contemplating poetry and art, ever-yearning to run free and unshackled by the binds of nobility. She dies young, perishing in a storm of fire and blood, when the invading forces bring their wrath upon her clan, and Kyungsoo cradles her luminescence to his chest and flees the carnage to find a peaceful place to send her on, far from the cruelty of men. She asks for her sister, and her soul wails with grief to know none of her family survived the attack.

Another life, another face - lithe and red haired and green-eyed, scarred freckled skin, pockmarked and dirt-streaked, an urchin on cold city streets. Kyungsoo finds him bleeding out in a back alley, knives having ripped apart his already gaunt flesh, his breaths slow and shallow. Death is a mercy for him, but even with the hardships of this incarnation, his soul still shines brighter than any of the distant stars could hope to match. His last wish is for Kyungsoo to take him to the highest building in London to let him see the view.

A straw-haired girl, singing songs on the cobbled Paris roads as the revolution rages around her. A dark-skinned man, surrounded by miles upon miles of sugarcane, the sun beating down from on high. He’s a weary soldier in the trenches in World War One, a little girl hiding terrified in the jungle during the Japanese occupation of Malaysia, a young man wasting away in New York City for the crime of loving another of the same sex. Throughout every incarnation, every new face, his core, his soul, remains incandescent and uncorrupted and beautiful.

Kyungsoo does what he can, for every incarnation that he finds - he averts injuries and soothes wounds, beats back ghosts and demons and malicious mortals, tucks them into bed and sings to them on restless and painful nights, even if they cannot hear his voice. The seraphs watch from their lofty perches, his fellow reapers unempathetic to his plight, only Suho willing to be called his comrade. Throughout the centuries, he meets a scant few blessed with the Sight - a physician in Xi'an, a boy in the Delhi slums, a young mother in Mexico City, who all take him in and listen when he feels the need to spill his truths (they're not his love, but they are his friends, and God Canlie would have been so proud to see him now).

Being like this - it’s not enough, it never will be, but as long as he can stay by Canlie's side. He can go on. Maybe some day, they will blink open new eyes, and they will see him again. Until then - until that day, when the touch of the seraphs leaves Canlie’s soul, this is all he can do.

Time marches on, Canlie’s soul moves on, and Kyungsoo is helpless to do anything but chase him through all his lives, a satellite caught in the orbit of his smile.

 

-

 

Kyungsoo watches the bright-eyed man from afar, hair red like fire and his smile brighter than the stars, so full of laughter and joy and brimming with fragile, burning, brilliant life. The setting sun in the distance casts his figure in warm hues and gentle shadows, the last light of day reflected and refracted in a million facets a hundred times brighter in his eyes. He’s just as breathtaking in this lifetime as ever.

(It’s his eyes - pools of molten sap made crystal by time, light trapped in that warmth, ancient eyes that pulled in a cold reaper and cracked his frozen heart, seeping in to fill him with life and desire and something like love. The colour may change, but the glow that radiates from within never will.)

It seems so cruel, for a reaper to fall in love with a human who only meets them once they have left their mortal coil - that the only time Kyungsoo ever gets to speak with Chanyeol _(Canlie, Ariel, Kaede, Reina, Arvind, Gabriel, Jia Ming, Minah-)_ is after he’s taken his last breath, once all that tender warmth has left his flesh and his spirit has risen from his cooling corpse. His soul will be thrown back into the endless cycle of reincarnation, and any recollection of their encounter wiped clean from his memory, like all of his other lives. He had the entirety of his first lifetime to grow too close, to become attached, and now he can only watch over him as the mortal he loves cycles through countless lives, never seeing him with the bright eyes he fell in love with.

Angels aren’t made to feel human emotions, but something inside his soul fractures a little more when he looks at the hourglass in his hand, the last grains of sand about to trickle down and out. Twenty-four minutes and fifty-seven seconds and fifteen milliseconds left out of a million million glittering moments, frozen and fleeting and eternal. Not too long now.

 


	7. DAY 7: Free Day/AU // put my hands on you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title taken from put my hands on you by dean. UM. VERY NC-17, VERY NSFW. HERE LIES THE PORN. warning for tentacles and um, kyungsoo being literally part-monster. this is a pile of tentacle filth, enjoy!

Chanyeol’s friends all tell him he’s crazy for falling in love with a boy who’s literally Cthulhu-spawn. Kyungsoo thinks he’s a little crazy too. 

But Chanyeol doesn’t care a bit what other people think. He loves his beautiful perfect tiny boyfriend to bits, can wax poetic about how lost he gets in Kyungsoo’s dark fathomless eyes; how his lips curve into the cutest heart and his sharp teeth gleam when he smiles; how careful and thoughtful and caring he is at all times; how soft he is in the early hours of day and the dead of night, warm and cuddly and wriggly in ways he actively tries to rein in when he’s awake. How sweetly he shivers and sighs when Chanyeol works him open, how his tentacles writhe when he’s lost in ecstasy and pounding into Chanyeol, how he glows and melts into a puddle of limbs after he’s been fucked senseless. Kyungsoo’s the most perfect man Chanyeol’s ever met in his life, and every day he wakes up next to him Chanyeol has to pinch himself to remind himself that he’s real.

It’s a fucking travesty that other people can’t see it. Kyungsoo’s been told he’s scary and gloomy and terrifying his whole life. From the moment he first got to know Kyungsoo onwards, Chanyeol has done his damndest to make sure Kyungsoo knows otherwise.

“Y-Yeol-” Kyungsoo sighs, tentacles splayed outwards from his back in a tangled mess behind him and writhing restlessly, his fingers threaded through Chanyeol’s messy dark hair, moaning softly as Chanyeol presses sloppy, open-mouthed kisses all over his cock, “-stop teasing already, c’mon,”

“Shhhh,” Chanyeol hushes him, kissing the tip of his drooling shaft, tongue darting out to swipe up the precome beading at the head, “I’m showing the perfect dick some love, just wait a little.”

“Well, it’s really nice that you love my dick so much,” Kyungsoo mutters, “but I needed you in me like. An hour ago.”

“Shhhh,” Chanyeol repeats, grinning, “It’s Kyungsoo’s Dick Appreciation Hour in Casa de Chansoo.”

“You don’t even speak Spanish, Yeol.” Kyungsoo tips his head back, sighing, as Chanyeol parts his lips and takes the head of Kyungsoo’s dick into his mouth. His precome is bittersweet, a touch salty. Briny, almost. “At least finger me while you suck me off?”

He makes the sweetest sound when Chanyeol complies, fingers prodding at his twitching hole, already wet and gaping slightly from Kyungsoo having spent the afternoon alone and horny while Chanyeol was out at a lecture. A tentacle comes down to assist him, the tapered tip oozing slick and slipping into Kyungsoo nice and easy, Chanyeol’s fingers squeezing in alongside it, working in tandem as Chanyeol licks and sucks at Kyungsoo’s cock. Let it never be said that Chanyeol isn’t an excellent multitasker in bed.

“Good boy,” Kyungsoo mumbles, petting his head and making Chanyeol preen at the attention. He gasps when Chanyeol sinks all the way down to the base of his shaft and crooks his fingers at the same time, a shock of bliss sizzling through every nerve. “Ahh, fuck, Yeol, you’re so good for me,” he groans, hips bucking up involuntarily, Chanyeol gagging a little, throat fluttering around Kyungsoo’s shaft even as he drives his fingers in deeper and scissors them, working his clenching walls open, wanting to be good for him. He jolts when one tentacle slithers down to touch his ass, suckers grazing his hole, and whines loudly when the tip slips into him, another soon joining in to stretch his rim wide.

“ _ Fͧ͛͋̍͒͛u̍c̈́ͧ̄k̀͑̃͊͒ _ , oh my  _ god _ ,” Kyungsoo curses, half-wailing, eldritch tones creeping into his voice for a moment. Chanyeol smirks, still choking on Kyungsoo’s dick, clenching down on the tentacle inside of him. That’s how you  _ know  _ Kyungsoo’s worked up. “Shit,  _ fuck _ , you’re so tight  just fuck me already,  _ Yeol- _ ”

Chanyeol slides his fingers out and pops off Kyungsoo’s cock, licking his lips obscenely, and clambers up Kyungsoo’s body, just as heated and wrecked and desperate as the other feels. Kyungsoo folds his legs around Chanyeol’s hips blindly, hands reaching up to grab Chanyeol by the neck and drag him into a sloppy open-mouthed kiss, even as Chanyeol takes his own leaking cock and positions the drooling head at Kyungsoo’s waiting empty rim. His lips are plush and chapped, he tastes like sweat and leftover pasta and desperation, and the shuddery moan he breathes into Chanyeol’s mouth as Chanyeol sinks in to the hilt is nothing short of saccharine.

“Fucking finally, you ass,” Kyungsoo says, breathless and stuffed full, wine-red hair splayed out on the pillow in a little halo around him, lips swollen and agape and eyes half-lidded, stars glittering in the cosmos of his sclera. The sight of him like this, debauched and drooling and halfway to ruin, would drive any human insane with lust. Or just plain insane, knowing his heritage. Chanyeol’s pretty sure he hasn’t even noticed that he’s blinking with his nictitating membrane instead of his human eyelids, with how fucking gone he looks. 

He’s also pretty sure that he’s lost control over his own tentacles too, considering how squirmy they’re getting all over and in him right now. He bites back a moan as one grazes his prostate and Kyungsoo tightens around his cock in symphony.

“Y’know, it’s really cute how your tentacles get when you’re all worked up like this,” Chanyeol hums, taking one in hand and kissing it chastely for good measure. The suckers at the tip grasp at him involuntarily, needy, leaving a trail of slick across his cheek. “All clingy and sticky.”   
  
Kyungsoo shudders, groaning, detaching his appendage from Chanyeol, bringing his hands up to his face to hide the blush threatening to engulf him. “Please don’t c-call them sticky,” he mumbles, “It’s gross,”

Chanyeol leans down, pushes his hands aside, and kisses the tip of his nose. “Well I think it’s cute as fuck. There isn’t a single thing about you that’s gross in any conceivable way. Except maybe how you like fish. Fish taste weird.”

Kyungsoo snorts, reaching up and wrapping his arms around Chanyeol’s neck, his remaining tentacles all wound round Chanyeol’s arms and back, clinging to every inch of skin they can get. “And that’s the only thing you can find about me that’s gross. My love of fish.”

“Childhood fish-bone-related trauma doesn’t just disappear overnight,” Chanyeol sniffs, mock-indignant, grinning as Kyungsoo laughs underneath him, breath puffing against his throat. “I love you, but I have standards.”

“You’re gonna h-h̓̓ǎ̃̋ͯtͧͣe͛̃ dinner with the family then,” Kyungsoo says, voice cracking on a syllable as Chanyeol jerks his hips forward for a second, brushing his prostate and making a white-hot spark crawl down his spine. “It’s  _ alllll  _ seafood there.”

“I’m just going to have to sweet-talk your mom into cooking me chicken then-” Chanyeol grins, nipping at the sharp jut of Kyungsoo’s jaw and delighting in the way his boyfriend’s tentacles all shiver with sensation, including the two buried in his ass. “I’m sure she’ll find me charming enough to make an exception, as her  _ favorite  _ son-in-law,”

Kyungsoo chuckles, “First of all, you’re her  _ only  _ possible son-in-law, Seungsoo’s got a wife-” his breath hitches as Chanyeol pulls his hips back a little, teasing at Kyungsoo’s oversensitive rim, pushing Kyungsoo’s tentacles further into him, “-s-second of all, we’re, we’re not married,”

“Not married  _ yet _ ,” Chanyeol’s fingers tweak at a perky nipple, and he beams at the wrecked tiny sound that Kyungsoo lets out, “Gotta wait till we’re out of college first. And I haven’t found a nice enough ring. I was thinking soundwave rings, those are nice and sentimental.”

Kyungsoo stares at him. “Are you really proposing to me. Right now, with your dick halfway in my asshole and two tentacles up yours.”

Chanyeol flushes. “No! I wanna do it all proper and romantic and like, with an actual plan. But. I’m just saying. I wanna marry you someday.” He mumbles, burying his face into Kyungsoo’s neck. “Like. A proto-proposal. I’m proposing that I’m going to propose to you.”

“You sappy mess.” Kyungsoo hums, soft, tender, carding one hand through Chanyeol’s hair and down to trace the blushing tip of one ear. “I’ll hold you to that, then. After university.”

“After university, definitely,” Chanyeol says, with fervour. He shifts his hips, whimpering as the tentacles worm their way in further, and thrusts back into Kyungsoo, starting up a rhythm as he rolls. Kyungsoo meets every thrust with sinful rolls of his hips, making softly debauched sounds in the back of his throat as they move together in synchronicity, his untouched cock bouncing between them, his tentacles driving into Chanyeol’s hole with just as much energy, 

“Ahh, fuck, I l̂̇̔̆o͊͒vͥͯ̒eͬ you,” Kyungsoo croons, sobbing as Chanyeol snaps his hips forward to drive deep into Kyungsoo’s ass, his appendages writhing inside of Chanyeol’s tight heat, Kyungsoo throwing his head back and exposing the exquisite arch of his porcelain throat, Chanyeol descending to worship it with his teeth like he deserves. One hand claws at Chanyeol’s bare back, raking stinging red lines over the space between his shoulderblades, the other scrabbling at the sheets for purchase as Chanyeol fucks him in an unsteady staccato, hips smacking against his ass in irregular two-four time.

There’s a tentacle wrapped around Chanyeol’s waist, another two winding down his thighs, and two more paying their loving attention to his nipples and smearing ooze everywhere. Chanyeol chokes and gurgles as the last one pokes at his already stretched rim, gliding in deep and spreading him wide, enough tentacles crammed up his ass that he swears he can feel it in his fucking throat with how full he is, constantly thrashing against Chanyeol’s tender prostate and making stars burst behind his eyelids. Fuck, he’s not gonna last like this.

Fortunately, his boyfriend’s just as on the edge as he is. “Â̊͒h̉͂̽̏͊ͧ̅hͮͤ̉ͨhͫͬ̊h̀͘,̏̐͛́ ͒͗͝Y̷ͨͯ̉ȅͣö̶͆̂l͑̂͢,ͩͤͯ͝ ͆͂̍̃̽yͦ̉̒̓ͯoͯͨ̿̔ͤ̚͏u͡'͊ͥ͞r̸̈́e̎̾̍ ̏͝s͛̍̒̈̐͡o͡ ̽̄͛̎f̓ͪūc̽͒ͩ̚͠k̛i̧ng̢ ̡̂ͩͭͥġ̑̿ͬ̄̂̉o͗͗̄̚oͭ̐̆̊ͤ͢d̍,͐̿̓ͩͪ̈̏” Kyungsoo babbles, trilling, unearthly inhuman desperate tones dripping and ringing through his warbling voice as he clings tight to Chanyeol, cock jerking and drooling against his stomach, walls speared open and fluttering hot hot tight tight  _ tight  _ around him. He’s really losing it now, and Chanyeol fucking loves it - loves how unravelled and mindless and needy he becomes in the throes of ecstasy, loves how he literally speaks in tongues with how gone he gets. “I̝͚̗̠͕͎̫ͅ'͖ṃ̩̼̭ ̳̪̺̪c̠̰͕͎̯̝l̠o̱s͚̬e͍͍̖̲͇̞ͅ,̗̣̫̯̫ ̝͖̺̘̰̝ͅI̜̫̜̟͕͕̩̞͔'̹̪̣̮͈̗m̦̮̙͙̪̼ ͉̼̞̭̤̗͎c̜̗̙̟͔̳̲͍̳l̳̯̗̬̫͍͉̖o͈̹͈̪͖̱͇̼s̳̲e̤͖͔̤̺̲-”

“Me too,” Chanyeol whimpers, hips stuttering, pistoning in and out and back and forth, between thrusting into Kyungsoo’s hole and impaling himself on his tentacles, every squelch and motion driving him mad with sensory overload and sending sparks skittering up his spine and washing over him in white-hot pleasure, building building building to a peak, both of them teetering at the precipice. “Fuck, fu-ck, I - I love y-ou -  _ Soo- _ ”

“ _ Ẏ̲̺̼̳͉͂͆̔̈́e̗̟̣͓̞̗͙̣̿̐̓ͧ̐o̺̣̖̻̠̓̉̆̌̄̽l̟͉̪̙̲̩̗͔̿ͯ̃͛̾̽̌͗̚ͅ _ -” Kyungsoo cries out, every muscle in his body tensing up in unison, and shatters apart, making a mess against both of their stomachs. Chanyeol buries his face into Kyungsoo’s neck, thrusts in one last time, and follows him into oblivion.

The aftermath of sex with a lover who is part-eldritch horrorterror is very, very sticky. Kyungsoo’s tentacles slide slowly, gingerly out of Chanyeol’s oversensitized rim, Chanyeol jolting and mewling uselessly as he’s left empty and sore and well-fucked as all hell. He doesn’t even want to move, a limp deadweight on top of Kyungsoo’s smaller form, his cock still weakly spurting come inside of Kyungsoo and filling him to the brim. Kyungsoo’s so worn out his tentacles aren’t even moving, just trembling in a tangled heap, some dangling off the edge of the bed. Everything stinks of sex and something briny and oceanic. They’re going to have to clean the sheets again after this, for the fifth time this week.  

“Let's get takeout for dinner,” Kyungsoo whispers, voice hoarse. Chanyeol smiles, and nods, exhausted. Winds his arms gently around his boyfriend, flops over to the side, presses a chaste kiss against his sweat-slicked forehead, mouths meaningless nothings and saccharine platitudes against his skin silently. The light of the sunset filters in through the window, spilling over their entwined figures in a shower of gold.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading (´ ꒳ ` ✿) hmu on [twitter](https://twitter.com/dragonairily) if you want to yell about chansoo


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